NYTimes Editorial Board: Say No to Computerized Voting Machines

The 2008 presidential election is fast approaching and some states are still using unreliable paperless computerized voting machines.

That is a big mistake. The danger is too great of votes being recorded wrong — or stolen.

Touchscreen machines — which resemble a bank ATM — are simply too prone to glitches like “vote-flipping,” in which votes for a candidate are recorded for his or her opponent. And it is too easy to plant malicious software that changes votes without anyone noticing.

Many states, but not all, now require their touchscreen machines to produce a “voter-verified paper trail” — a paper record of the vote that a voter can review, which becomes the official ballot. These paper records can be audited, to ensure that the recorded vote totals are correct.

Voter verified paper trails are an improvement, but the best solution is to avoid touchscreen voting machines entirely.